June Jordan

Poem for Sriram Shamasunder And All of Poetry for the People It’s a sunlit morning with jasmine blooming easily and a drove of robin redbreasts diving into the ivy covering what used to be a backyard fence or doves shoving aside the birch tree leaves when a young man walks among the flowers to my doorway where he knocks then stands still brilliant in a clean white shirt He lifts a soft fist to that door and knocks again He’s come to say this was or that was not and what’s anyone of us to do about what’s done what’s past but prickling salt to sting our eyes What’s anyone of us to do about what’s done And 7-month-old Bingo puppy leaps and hits that clean white shirt with muddy paw prints here and here and there And what’s anyone of us to do about what’s done I say I’ll wash the shirt no problem two times through the delicate blue cycle of an old machine the shirt spins in the soapy suds and spins in rinse and spins and spins out dry not clean still marked by accidents by energy of whatever serious or trifling cause the shirt stays dirty from that puppy’s paws I take that fine white shirt from India the threads as soft as baby fingers weaving them together and I wash that shirt between between the knuckles of my own two hands I scrub and rub that shirt to take the dirty markings out At the pocket and around the shoulder seam and on both sleeves the dirt the paw prints tantalize my soap my water my sweat equity invested in the restoration of a clean white shirt And on the eleventh try I see no more no anything unfortunate no dirt I hold the limp fine cloth between the faucet stream of water as transparent as a wish the moon stayed out all day How small it has become! That clean white shirt! How delicate! How slight! How like a soft fist knocking on my door! And now I hang the shirt to dry as slowly as it needs the air to work its way with everything It’s clean. A clean white shirt nobody wanted to spoil or soil that shirt much cleaner now but also not the same as the first before that shirt got hit got hurt not perfect anymore just beautiful a clean white shirt It’s hard to keep a clean shirt clean.

I honey people murder mercy U.S.A. the milkland turn to monsters teach to kill to violate pull down destroy the weakly freedom growing fruit from being born America tomorrow yesterday rip rape exacerbate despoil disfigure crazy running threat the deadly thrall appall belief dispel the wildlife burn the breast the onward tongue the outward hand deform the normal rainy riot sunshine shelter wreck of darkness derogate delimit blank explode deprive assassinate and batten up like bullets fatten up the raving greed reactivate a springtime terrorizing death by men by more than you or I can STOP II They sleep who know a regulated place or pulse or tide or changing sky according to some universal stage direction obvious like shorewashed shells we share an afternoon of mourning in between no next predictable except for wild reversal hearse rehearsal bleach the blacklong lunging ritual of fright insanity and more deplorable abortion more and more

Dedicated to the 600,000 Palestinian men, women, and children who lived in Lebanon from 1948-1983. I didn’t know and nobody told me and what could I do or say, anyway? They said you shot the London Ambassador and when that wasn’t true they said so what They said you shelled their northern villages and when U.N. forces reported that was not true because your side of the cease-fire was holding since more than a year before they said so what They said they wanted simply to carve a 25 mile buffer zone and then they ravaged your water supplies your electricity your hospitals your schools your highways and byways all the way north to Beirut because they said this was their quest for peace They blew up your homes and demolished the grocery stores and blocked the Red Cross and took away doctors to jail and they cluster-bombed girls and boys whose bodies swelled purple and black into twice the original size and tore the buttocks from a four month old baby and then they said this was brilliant military accomplishment and this was done they said in the name of self-defense they said that is the noblest concept of mankind isn’t that obvious? They said something about never again and then they made close to one million human beings homeless in less than three weeks and they killed or maimed 40,000 of your men and your women and your children But I didn’t know and nobody told me and what could I do or say, anyway? They said they were victims. They said you were Arabs. They called      your apartments and gardens      guerrilla strongholds. They called      the screaming devastation that they created       the rubble. Then they told you to leave, didn’t they? Didn’t you read the leaflets that they dropped from their hotshot fighter jets? They told you to go. One hundred and thirty-five thousand Palestinians in Beirut and why didn’t you take the hint? Go! There was the Mediterranean: You could walk into the water and stay there. What was the problem? I didn’t know and nobody told me and what could I do or say, anyway? Yes, I did know it was the money I earned as a poet that paid for the bombs and the planes and the tanks that they used to massacre your family But I am not an evil person The people of my country aren't so bad You can expect but so much from those of us who have to pay taxes and watch American TV You see my point; I’m sorry. I really am sorry.